Comments on Advance Indiana™: More On Daniels' Welfare Privatization

Amen to Paul Ogden on diagnosing the problem perfe...

2009-07-20T14:11:15.661-05:00

Amen to Paul Ogden on diagnosing the problem perfectly. What makes the private sector preferred in some situations is the notion that competition will keep costs down. But when you give a company a monopoly, you get NONE of the cost reduction (well, that's not true - they'll fire every employee in favor of a computer), all of the insanely high executive compensation, and all of the corner cutting. At least FSSA didn't get a SEVENTY-FIVE YEAR CONTRACT.

Look at what happened the second the companies took over the toll road - the cost went to $4.65 then to $8.00 for some vehicles. Can anyone dispute that the Governor's "inspiration" could be distilled into one those late night commercials designed to get people foolishly to cough up long-term annuities from personal injury settlements in exchange for a lump sum that is worth sizeably less than the term value, even after discounting?

But what an ingenius political move by Governor Daniels. Had Indiana kept the toll road and raised rates to the same levels, we would have made a lot more money than 3.8 billion over 75 years, BUT we could only do that by raising rates. The Governor was too afraid to get appointees who would do this, so instead, he handed it over to a third-party to do the dirty work, and instead, he sold out our "annuity" so a lump sum for road construction. All he did was took money out of the hands of, oh, say the next 10 to 17 Hoosier Governors.

Heck, why not do the same thing with the Hoosier Lottery, folks? Over the past 20 years, the Hoosier Lottery has returned 3.4 billion to the state. Why not the next 20 years worth of revenue now? We can sell a twenty-year lease for a billion, and we can use that money to fund road construction, too! How exciting!

Boy or boy--didn't we all see this one coming ...

2009-07-20T13:02:07.068-05:00

Boy or boy--didn't we all see this one coming when the Golden Boy Mitch Roob came up with the privatization idea and ,lo and behold, one of the companies he had an interest in just HAPPENED to be working on the bid....wouldn't the Church Lady say, "How Conveeeeeeenient!"??

Gary, I like Daniels in a lot of areas. But as an...

2009-07-20T09:41:11.008-05:00

Gary, I like Daniels in a lot of areas. But as an administrator, he has not been nearly active as he needs to be over the agencies that are administrating his policies. Granted, his subordinates are the ones falling down on the job, but the buck ultimately stops on the Governor's desk. Too many times his people have been told of problems in his agencies and nobody bothers to even take a look at the problems.
He needs to be a lot more proactive.

The situation at FSSA highlights not only that problem, but another one. Privatization should not be undertaken in every case. Not every government service is best provided by the private sector. Republicans have too often gotten away from the notion that privatization is supposed to be about market competition. What market competition is there when you have one company bidding and then hand them a 10 year contract. That's a government-endorsed monopoly.